


Love Is for Children

by Ysabetwordsmith



Series: Love Is For Children [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: #coulsonlives, Age Play, Angst, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Bruce has a horrible backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Comfort Reading, Community: asexual_fandom, Competency, Current Environment Is Safe, Cute, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Baggage, Families of Choice, Family, Feels, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Games, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Incidental self-injury, Making up for lost time, Multiplicity/Plurality, No Sex, Nonsexual Ageplay, Odin's A+ Parenting, Past Abuse, Personal Growth, Team, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Teambuilding, Teamwork, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Trust, Trust Issues, Unconventional Families, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson is SHIELD's best handler for a reason: he can deal with the broken people that nobody else can manage but desperately need anyway. So he comes up with an unusual teambuilding technique to shore up the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SHIELD's Best Handler

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the [Asexy Valentines Fest](http://asexual-fandom.dreamwidth.org/54675.html), partly inspired by Dreamwidth user aceofannwn. It also fills the "game night" square on [my card](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9070413.html) for the Trope Bingo fest. 
> 
> I got to thinking that there isn't much family-love fiction, compared to sexual-love fiction. There isn't much [non-sexual ageplay](http://hoh-dd-beginnings.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ageplay&action=display&thread=98), compared to sexual ageplay. There are all kinds of stories about fights and explosions, and far less about cleaning up the mess afterwards. And all the Avengers have a broken past in one way or another, as do most superheroes. So all those things came together to make this story.

The problem with teambuilding, Phil mused, was that you couldn't do it without a team. He could corner any one of the Avengers, but he had yet to get more than two of them together for more than a few minutes, outside a mission. Tony spent most of his time hiding in his lab making things. Bruce spent most of his time in _his_ lab trying to _unmake_ the Hulk. Steve just hid in his room. Thor was stuck in Asgard for the foreseeable future.

Clint and Natasha came within Phil's reach slightly more, because they'd been his assets the longest. So Phil knew exactly how many hours Clint spent in the archery range before blisters rose even through _his_ tough skin, and popped, and peeled away to leave raw pink fingers that he tried to conceal when he finally came up for supper. Clint was trying to forget what had happened to him. Phil knew exactly how many books Natasha had read, and that every one of them was nonfiction and in English, desperate attempts to anchor herself in what was here and now and _real_. She was also perpetually ready to obliterate anything that threatened her teammates. This awareness of them made it easier for Phil to gauge the level of trouble at hand, compared to worrying about how much food Tony might or might not eat, and what precisely constituted Bruce's complete list of triggers, and whether it was really good for Steve to decorate his entire apartment in vintage 1930s goods. 

They healed well from physical wounds; emotional ones, not so much. The more they forced themselves to buck up so they could fight supervillains effectively, the more Phil worried. The Avengers had taken a lot of damage before and during the Battle of New York, some of it from "friendly fire," which was just a disgrace. _Friendly fire isn't,_ Phil grumbled to himself. All of that made it awkward to practice cooperation with everyone limping inwardly and trying to avoid putting weight on their personal issues. It was doubly awkward attempting to work out communal living arrangements in Tony's enormous, rebuilt tower where none of them -- possibly even Tony -- _really_ felt at home.

Phil looked at the ruins of his team, tallied up the harm done by Fury's savage trick with the bloodied cards, and tamped down a desire to murder his boss. It wouldn't help. Phil needed a way to fix what was broken, but he hardly knew where to start. 

By the time he'd shaken off the miserable backlash from Loki destroying Phil's Life Model Decoy, the team had thought him dead for a _week_. Steve had personally arranged a _funeral_ and interred what was left of Phil's prized collection, all signed, along with the closed casket. Fury _still_ hadn't owned up to the deceit. No, he left that mess for Phil to clean up after he could finally walk out of SHIELD medical -- "So they'll know it's really you, Agent." What a disaster. No wonder nobody wanted to see him, or each other. It all just hurt too much.

So Phil sorted through his toolbox of teambuilding techniques. It was his fluency with things like this that made him SHIELD's best handler, the one who got the brilliant but broken people that nobody else could manage and desperately needed anyhow. Phil knew how to work with whomever and whatever he found at hand. Right now he needed something simple, something safe. It had to be something they could reliably do. He wanted to rebuild his people's trust in _themselves,_ before even trying to broach the topic of trusting each other. There was just too much betrayal in the past to start anywhere but the very foundation. They urgently needed a way to relax and unwind.

Phil dismissed the cloak-and-dagger stuff first, then the batch of entrepreneurial options that probably wouldn't work for anyone but Tony. He set aside the soft tangle of cotton loops and wooden beads. Nobody would find the two-person rope puzzle fun right now. They weren't musically inclined enough for a drum workshop, either. 

He flipped through a handbook of cooperative games, wishing again that Fury had just _listened_ to him and not cut him out from under Steve before they could even start to bond. It would've been easy to use Steve's innately gentle, playful nature to form a strong team around him -- if he'd had one good trustworthy connection to start. The way things went, though, Steve wouldn't have any heart for cooperative games right now. Without him, there was little chance of convincing anyone else to give it a try.

There were other kinds of games, however, Phil mused. Clint, Natasha, and Tony all played video games, poker, and so forth. Steve had never seen video games until recently, but according to old records he had played at least pinball and checkers. Most soldiers knew how to play poker too. Bruce ... was an enigma. Phil didn't know what kind of games he might like or hate. Card games were common, though, and relatively safe. Maybe something would work out.

The first game night was almost a total loss. Steve sent his regrets in a politely worded message. Bruce just said "No," and vanished back into his lab. Tony neither responded nor arrived. Clint and Natasha both came to the common room because Phil had asked.

Phil suggested card games. They looked at him with suspicion, and he died a little inside. He sighed and let them play video games. Predictably, they chose player-vs-player. They tossed a coin to see who got to pick the game for each round. Clint always chose fantasy so he could use a bow. Natasha invariably went for modern or sci-fi military games. Neither of them ever chose anything except first-person-shooters. They also picked on each other the whole time, mocking every mistake.

"This is stupid," Clint said after two hours, tossing his controller onto the couch.

"You're just saying that because you lost again," Natasha said as she picked off the last of the game-generated enemies to finish her score.

"Sportsmanship, Natasha," Phil said gently. "Nobody likes a sore winner."

It was the wrong thing to say, not for Natasha but for Clint. He was still upset about how _well_ he had performed under mind control. "Winning isn't everything," Clint muttered.

Clearly he blamed himself for what had happened on the Helicarrier. Clint had a nervous edge to his energy these days, and dark circles under his eyes. Phil knew that he was sleeping, on average, about two hours a night. It left him prone to dozing off during the day, only to force himself awake again. Natasha fared only a little better, still skittish around Bruce and reluctant to let either Clint or Phil out of her surveillance range, for all she kept watch from a discreet distance. She jittered unless she concentrated on remaining motionless.

Worse, Clint and Natasha seemed uneasy with _each other,_ both willing to offer comfort but hesitant to accept it. They had been partners for years. Their relationship was not romantic as people tended to misread it -- Clint was asexual and Natasha was aromantic -- but they had a tight platonic bond. Natasha preferred to exercise her distinctively predatory sexual interests during missions only. (Her code name was no accident.) Clint had no such interests at all; sexuality frankly bored him, as anything more than a subject for sassy banter. That made social connections more challenging for both of them, so they relied a great deal on their partnership. Seeing them rub each other the wrong way was painful to watch.

"It's how you play the game that counts," Phil said to Clint, hoping to take the edge off the competition that was turning from fun toward fight.

Clint picked up that thread, offering, "You pick the next game, Natasha. Maybe one of the spy games? We haven't done one of those yet, and you used to love playing--"

"Love is for children!" she snapped.

"All right," Phil said mildly. An idea was dawning on him, not coming on all at once like a cartoon lightbulb, but rather brightening slowly and steadily like a dimmer switch being turned up. It was a much more advanced exercise than he would ordinarily have tried at this stage, but then again, it was really Natasha who suggested it. That held promise, and Phil had long since learned to trust his instincts. "I think I can work with that."


	2. Come Play with Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil orchestrates the new teambuilding exercise. Just as it really starts to work, there's an interruption.

The second game night went considerably better. This time Phil only invited Clint and Natasha for starters, explaining the terms very carefully in advance. He counted on Clint's love of mischief and Natasha's pride in her acting ability, and secretly crossed his fingers ... and it _worked_. They both showed up in their pajamas, Clint barefoot in loud purple flannels and Natasha in deeper burgundy fleece with satin house slippers. They stared at Phil.

Phil straightened the lapels of his navy-blue terrycloth bathrobe and began setting up the game. He placed oreos on one end of the checkerboard and vanilla sandwich cookies on the other.

Predictably, Clint tried to steal one of the cookies. Phil blocked him and said, "Play fair, Clint. You don't get to eat any until you capture a piece."

"Can't I have just one?" Clint wheedled, bouncing a little on his bare toes. "How are we going to know if they're any good if we don't test them first?" 

Phil hid a smile. Oh yes, this was _definitely_ working. "One each to start, then, in the interest of making sure the cookies really are edible," he said. He held out the two packages. Natasha chose vanilla. Clint chose chocolate. 

"Thanks," Clint said around a mouthful of cookie.

"That's convenient," Phil said. "Clint, you play white so you can eat the chocolate pieces you capture. Natasha, you play black." 

"Great!" Clint said. He flopped down at his end of the board. 

Natasha just nodded. She was as reserved as Clint was bubbly. Phil silently wondered if a younger Natasha had indeed been like this. It seemed plausible. She had been raised to be a weapon, not a person. Then again, maybe she just thought the whole exercise was silly but didn't want to ruin it for everyone else. That seemed just as likely. Of all the team members, she was the hardest to read, because she could project anything she wanted and it was never a reliable gauge of her real feelings.

They played two games of checkers. To Phil's satisfaction, Natasha gradually unwound from a taut bundle of nerves to something more like a watch spring, content to wait until the right time to strike. Clint stopped snipping and sniping at her with real heat and fell back into the casual sass he favored with his teammates. He was like everyone's annoying brother again. That helped Phil relax a little too.

"I'm full," Clint announced after finishing his last cookie. He stretched out on the couch and yawned. "Tired, too."

"Ready to call it a night?" Phil asked. He'd hoped for a longer teambuilding session, but honestly, he'd sacrifice that in a minute if it meant Clint might actually get some decent sleep.

"Naw," Clint said. "Can I just take a nap here?"

"Sure you can," Phil said. He fetched a fluffy blue blanket from the closet and tucked it around Clint. With another yawn, Clint snuggled into it, eyes already closing.

The door of the common room clicked open. 

What the hell? Phil hadn't bothered locking it because all the other Avengers were hiding from each other, and nobody else could _get_ to this floor. Clint bounded to his feet, all signs of sleepiness gone in an instant.

Oh, Phil was going to _kill_ whoever just opened that door.

It was impossible to stomp properly in house shoes, but Phil managed a credible facsimile. _"What?"_ he snapped when he got to the door. "This had better be important!"

Tony Stark lingered in the doorway, not stepping any farther into the room. He crossed his arms over his chest. Over the _arc reactor,_ Phil realized suddenly, which Tony only did when he felt particularly nervous about something. Phil wondered what had gone wrong. He hadn't heard any explosions, but ...

"I watched," Tony said. "I saw some ... things. On the security monitors." His voice faltered, his eyes looking everywhere in the room except at Phil. 

Phil suddenly remembered the time he had threatened to tase Tony and watch _Supernanny_ while he drooled into the carpet. At the time, Phil hadn't known nearly as much about Tony as he did now, and in retrospect the threat made him ashamed of himself. No wonder Tony didn't trust him. Phil couldn't blame this one on Fury; this was his own mess to clean up.

"All right, so you watched us. This is your building, and we knew moving in that we'd need very thorough security. It's okay, Tony," Phil said calmly. "What did you think of the footage?"

"I want --" Tony choked to a stop, tried again. "What you were doing. Would you, can I ...?"

Phil hadn't meant to invite anyone else into this unless or until Clint and Natasha grew comfortable with it. Yet Phil knew that if he turned Tony away now, there would never come another chance. It hadn't been that long ago that Tony rode a nuke into outer space to stop the Chitauri; that kind of thing tended to leave marks on people. There was something terribly fragile about Tony today, the shimmer in his brown eyes, the way he hugged himself as if trying to hold all the pieces together. The way he was expecting, Phil realized with a sinking sensation, to be sent away. To be rejected, _again_.

"Would you like to come play with us?" Phil asked. Nevermind that Tony hadn't gotten the whole careful explanation of concept and parameters. Nevermind Natasha's heartless _Iron Man: yes, Tony Stark: not recommended_. Phil would make this work somehow. He _had_ to. "You're welcome to come in, Tony."


	3. Uncle Phil Explains the Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wants to know why everyone is wearing pajamas. Uncle Phil summarizes the exercise ... and then quickly has to lay out some ground rules.

"Yes! That's great, you're great, really, I'd love to play. Thanks. Why are you all in pajamas?" Tony said all in one breath as he dashed into the room.

And that was Tony, all right, going from frame-by-frame to fast-forward all in an instant. Phil chuckled a little. "We really are playing a game, Tony. It's a kind of role-playing, a teambuilding exercise. We're pretending to be a family on a lazy Saturday, so we can relax. And we're playing checkers with cookies, or we were, until Clint got tired."

"I'm not tired," Clint insisted. He hadn't returned to the couch. 

This did not make Phil happy. "Well, sit back down anyway, Clint. There's no need to stand at attention," he said. That, of course, made Clint slouch in place lest he be mistaken for anything approaching respectful. Maybe he'd go back to the couch eventually, when he felt like it.

"But why pajamas?" Tony insisted. He flitted around Natasha and Clint. "I mean, look, Natasha has _lace_ on the cuffs of hers, she looks like a little girl, how wrong is _that?"_

Phil carefully hid his wince. This was the difficult part of the explanation; he'd hoped it could wait a little while, but then Tony never waited for anything. "That's part of the game. I'm Uncle Phil ... and I'm babysitting my sister's kids for the day." He'd chosen uncle, partly because it was on the list of suggestions in the exercise, but also because it sidestepped the issues most of his team had with parents. He didn't have anyone who'd been abused by an actual uncle, as far as he knew.

_"Ohhh ..."_ Tony said, a long falling note of enlightenment. Then he grinned. "Then we should all have footie pajamas!"

"Do people even _make_ footie pajamas in our sizes?" Clint said. He drifted back to the couch and his blanket. Natasha joined him there. Clint tucked his bare feet under her legs.

"They will if I pay them enough," Tony said.

_"No,"_ Phil said firmly. He had to lay out the ground rules very quickly before this all got out of hand.

"Really, people will do _anything_ if you wave enough money at them," Tony insisted. "I should know! Genius- _billionaire_ -playboy-philanthropist."

"Not right now, Tony," Phil said. "Children don't buy things. Grownups do. Providing supplies for this exercise is my job, not yours. So if you want footie pajamas, you can have them, but _I_ will take care of that for you." He finally managed to catch Tony's gaze for a moment and added, "I will take care of you."

"But I got my first bank account when I was five," Tony whined.

"Then you can be _four,"_ Phil said without missing a beat. He waited for Tony's next argument. 

"... 'kay," Tony said in a small voice.

"Okay," Phil agreed.

Clint said, as if meeting someone for the first time, "Hi. I'm Clint Barton. I'm eight."

"Natka Barton, and I'm seven," came the follow up.

Phil was startled by that. She'd signed the return message that way when she agreed to the exercise, so he knew about the name, how much she wished to be Clint's sister. She'd never spoken it before, though. She'd scarcely _spoken_.

Tony got a gleam in his eyes, and Phil had a split second to think _trouble_ and build a horrible suspicion where this was going --

"Hi, I'm Tony Carter, and I'm four."

Well. That was still painfully revelatory about Tony's childhood fantasies, but at least it wasn't the team-wrecking disaster that Tony _Rogers_ could have been. Nice save, indeed.

"Let's be friends," Clint said.

Tony shrugged a little, and bounced on his toes the way Clint did, and smiled maybe just a bit too much, as if Tony couldn't decide whether to be pleased or wary at the offer. 

"Would you like to learn how to play checkers? You're pretty bright; you should pick it up in no time," Phil said, trying for a more appealing distraction.

"Oreos give me a tummyache," Tony said.

Only Phil's years in espionage kept his mouth from falling open in shock. Tony Stark _never_ admitted to weakness if he could avoid it. That allergy was nowhere in Tony's files, and it certainly hadn't stopped him from eating oreos before. Yet Phil did not doubt it was _true_. Apparently if Natasha had gotten into the spirit of things by acting, Tony had decided to do it by _not_ acting.

"Thank you for telling me that, Tony," Phil said. If Tony _Carter_ was prone to telling useful truths without prompting, Phil wanted to encourage that as much as possible. "Are vanilla cookies okay?" Tony nodded. Phil handed him one to sample. "Then I'll play white and eat the oreos," Phil continued. "You get more of the vanilla when you capture a piece. Now, here are the rules ..."

Phil set up the board again as he explained the basics of checkers just as he would to a precocious four-year-old. Tony listened raptly, leaning forward with the very tip of his pink tongue poking out of his mouth. It was almost as if nobody had ever explained the game to him before. Yet Phil had seen Tony playing checkers against JARVIS once. Then again ... maybe nobody _had_ explained the rules. Maybe this was just another of the million things that Tony had taught _himself_.

Briefly Phil wished for a time machine so he could go back and strangle Howard Stark, the genius who evidently couldn't figure out how to teach his own son to play checkers. But no. That would doubtless make Steve cry, and Phil couldn't stand the thought of doing that even in his own fantasy. Possibly it would make Tony cry, too. Not the fierce Mr. Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, no. But this tentative and vulnerable little-Tony who was looking at Phil like Phil had won a Nobel Prize, just for taking the time to pretend to teach him something? Oh yes. This, somehow, was a Tony with a very different set of associations with a father-figure. 

Suddenly this seemed much less like a teambuilding exercise and more like something a great deal heavier and truer than that. Phil took a deep breath and made his first move. "Okay, now it's your turn," he said.

On the couch, Clint began to snore, Natka curled like a cat beside him.


	4. He Followed Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony shows up late to game night, towing a friend behind him. Not everyone is thrilled with this development.

Game night became a regular activity. Phil was patient with his team as they worked out the dynamics. Natasha was quiet. Clint was a mischievous little monkey. Tony was a wild thing who could not sit still for two minutes, unless he had Phil's undivided attention, in which case he could not have been budged without a tow truck. They played everything from Go Fish to video games. (How did Tony even _have_ that Smurf game on the server, dating from the original construction of the tower?) It was fun. 

Everyone benefited, too. Natasha stopped jumping at shadows so much. Clint stopped looking like a raccoon, the dark smudges fading away as he got more sleep. Tony no longer hid in the lab during all his waking hours. Even Phil began to loosen up a bit as he felt more confident that his team wasn't going to fall apart or be ripped away from him at a moment's notice. There were problems, still, but those could be fixed.

Then one night Tony showed up ten minutes late, and not by himself.

"This is my friend Bruce," Tony said to Phil. "He followed me home --"

"Tony _dragged_ me here," Bruce muttered, but perhaps not altogether grudgingly.

"-- so can he play too?" Tony asked.

"Yes, of course," said Phil.

_"No,"_ said Natka at exactly the same instant.

"You can't say _you can't play,"_ Phil reminded her. "That's mean, and we don't do mean things in here. It's a rule."

"Bruce is mean. He hits people. He scares me," Natka said. "I don't like him." 

Which was all true of the Hulk, but Bruce wasn't exactly the Hulk. Though there was no inviting Bruce without _also,_ necessarily, inviting the Hulk. Awkward.

"Well, we have a rule about not hitting people too," Phil said. "So that won't be a problem here."

"I'm sorry I was mean to you," Bruce said suddenly.

Phil recalled the security footage from Kolkata. Bruce had, in fact, spooked Black Widow on purpose, which was a pretty mean thing to do to a spy. (Phil wondered if Bruce had any idea how _hard_ that was to do; he thought probably not.) It had also been a fair test of unfortunate circumstances, especially given Bruce's past. Bruce had apologized for it immediately after, but Black Widow had ignored his apology and just hauled him off to the Helicarrier as soon as he quit dragging his feet. She never had really _trusted_ him, only tolerated him. But then that was how she dealt with most people. Few of them ever even suspected it.

Natka watched Bruce warily for a few moments. Then she sighed and said, "Okay. Apology accepted. I guess you can play too."

"Okay, then," Phil said with a smile for both of them. He beckoned Bruce and Tony into the common room. Today the activity of choice happened to be dominoes. Half a game already sprawled across the carpet where Natka and Clint had started without Tony.

Bruce hung back a little, clinging to Tony. Phil couldn't help remembering how they'd dragged the poor man out of hiding and forced him onto the team. That had been ... an act of desperate necessity, but still unkind. No wonder Bruce hesitated. _I should have sent Tony instead of Natasha, nevermind the regulations,_ Phil realized. Then he pushed his guilt to the back of his mind; it wouldn't help now. "Have a seat, Bruce. We're happy to see you," Phil said.

"Uh-huh," Bruce said, still not moving even though everyone else did. Tony took his hand and tugged him gently forward.

Phil sat on the couch. Natka settled on the floor next to Clint, near one end of the coffee table. Tony sat on the other side of Clint. There were fresh hot fish sticks in a basket on the coffee table, the kind actually shaped like fish, in the interest of getting Tony to eat something that hadn't come out of a blender or a plastic bag. If some of the sauces were gourmet blends in addition to plain ketchup and tartar sauce, well, Phil was the grownup and could serve what he liked.

Bruce crouched down, deliberately making himself smaller than Natka. He hadn't stated a specific age yet but seemed to be aiming toward toddler range. He kept trying to scrunch himself _under_ the coffee table. That was awkward because it was Natka's favorite hiding place too, and while she fit under there, Bruce didn't really. Clint liked to perch atop the couch sometimes. Phil allowed that as long as Clint took care not to fall off. 

Watching Bruce, Phil got the distinct impression that he'd been told to "stand up for himself" or "be a man" too often and _far_ too early. The conspicuous uproar of the Hulk probably didn't help matters either. Clearly what Bruce needed most was a sense of security. So if he wanted to curl up and hide, then fine, Phil was prepared to do whatever made him feel safe. Natka on the other hand was more grudging in her acceptance.

That meant they needed a new coffee table, one that could accommodate both Natka and Bruce. Fortunately Phil had an expense account and a personal account. He would just have to ask JARVIS to find some suitable furniture catalogs for him. Then he could pick out a good coffee table and have it installed as a surprise for the next game night.

He'd already sprung for the footie pajamas for Tony and Natka, although Clint had insisted on keeping his own feet bare. Phil had kept his bathrobe but replaced his boring old sleepwear with soft new bottoms in gray jersey-knit and a white t-shirt that said _World's Mightiest Uncle_. The latter had been a gift from the "kids," who promised they had not spent a penny on it but convinced someone else to help instead. Phil believed them. 

Besides, it was a marvelous shirt. Secretly he loved it more than his suits.


	5. I Know You Look Out for Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as Natka and Bruce are coming to terms with the new arrangement, Steve shows up wondering what's going on. Phil attempts to explain. In his bathrobe. To Steve, the person for whom he has the most respect and the least comfort dealing with.

Bruce _liked_ the new coffee table, Phil noted with approval. Instead of legs it had solid slabs of wood at both ends plus a removable one under the middle, thus creating two separate spaces. It was large enough to fit Bruce and to keep him out of sight from Natka. Phil hoped the two of them would grow more comfortable with each other eventually, but he refused to push. They got enough of that from SHIELD. 

Maybe if they had a chance to express their reservations openly, and have those _respected_ for a change, they'd work through it. So Bruce and Natka didn't have to sit next to each other or play together any closer than the overall game of make-believe, unless Natka offered. That was all on her, because Bruce almost never initiated anything. _You can't say you can't play_ wasn't an issue if someone never asked to play in the first place. Thus far, Natka had invited Bruce to play with blocks once, and he'd accepted. That was good progress. 

They worked together adequately in the field, but Phil didn't like to see his people bottling up real problems so they could do their job. He had his own theories about what _really_ created the Hulk. The gamma rays had just been a catalyst enabling a physical manifestation of an inner torment that already existed. _I'm exposed, like a nerve; it's a nightmare,_ Bruce had once confided to Tony. Oh yes, Phil knew all about nightmares.

At least Clint and Natka were functioning smoothly as brother and sister again. It helped that they were secure in their orientations. Phil preferred their practiced ease to the mayhem that filled the hours outside of game night: Tony's never-ending stream of romantic meltdowns, Bruce's pining over Betty (who was still hiding from her father and had yet to respond to Phil's coaxing offers of protection), and Steve's blushing-stammering-gasping reaction to any detailed mention of sexuality whatsoever. Phil kept an eye on that last part in particular. He suspected that Steve might turn out demisexual. Demis sometimes bloomed late -- _very_ late, in their twenties or thirties or more -- which meant Steve might be just shy of the age when it was actually appropriate for him to start exploring such things, orientationwise, nevermind his chronological or subjective ages.

Phil set out supper on the coffee table. He had bribed Tony's favorite Italian restaurant to make SpaghettiOs from scratch. The fragrant scent of tomato sauce wafted up as Phil opened the cartons. Then he had to confiscate the breadsticks as Tony and Clint tried to stage a mock sword fight. Bruce and Natka ate with the single-minded determination of people who had gone hungry before and never intended to do so again. Finally Phil convinced Tony and Clint to sit down and eat too. Clint just needed an outlet for his natural exuberance that didn't end with someone screaming at him. Perhaps it would be prudent to acquire a few toy lightsabers.

After supper, they turned on the Smurf video game. Tony was the best at it, but he happily let everyone else have a turn too. If there was one thing he was good at, that was sharing his toys. Unfortunately the viewscreen had developed an annoying tendency to skip now and then. 

"I guess I'll have to get my repair guy to look at it tomorrow," Phil said with a wink at Tony. Tony giggled.

Then a muffled knock sounded at the door, followed by Steve's plaintive voice, "Clint, Natasha? Tony, Bruce? Agent Coulson? _Anybody?"_

Phil had asked JARVIS to mute the common room during game nights unless a crisis occurred. He really didn't want any interruptions. But now Steve had come out of his room for some reason, and presumably asked JARVIS where everyone was, so Phil needed to find out why.

"Try not to break anything while I'm gone, kids," Phil said as he got up from the couch. Tony and Clint scooted closer together. Bruce and Natka disappeared under the coffee table.

Dealing with Steve was always a little awkward. Reaching out to him felt like reaching for a missing rung on a ladder. Phil coped with that the way he usually did, by retreating into careful formality. "Was there something you needed, Captain Rogers?" he asked as he opened the door a crack.

"Um, not exactly, I just wanted to ask Tony about my suit and he wasn't where I -- why are you wearing a _bathrobe?"_

"We are engaged in a teambuilding exercise," Phil said.

"Without your _clothes on?"_ Steve demanded. He started trying to peer over Phil, into the room.

Phil stepped outside and shut the door firmly behind him, then leaned against it. He parted the bathrobe to show Steve the t-shirt underneath. "Everyone is fully dressed, just not in street clothes," he said mildly. "I assure you there is absolutely nothing sexual, nonconsensual, or otherwise inappropriate about our activities."

Steve blushed and looked away. "I didn't mean that." Then he gave a little _hm!_ of enlightenment. "Is this like the time you tried to get people to come play games?"

"We are playing a game, yes," Phil said. "This is game night."

"Okay then," Steve said, finally relaxing. "It's just, I dunno, when I couldn't find anybody I got a little worried. But if you've got some teamwork thing going on, it's fine. I know you look out for us."

That made Phil wonder if Steve might give him a second chance. It was worth a try. "Listen, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, with what I said when we first met," he said. "I didn't mean to sound like a creepy stalker."

Steve shook his head. "No, I heard what you meant. You _stood watch_ over me while I was helpless. I get that," he said. "Thank you for doing it."

"You're welcome," Phil said.

"So who was it, Clint or Natasha?" Steve asked.

"What?" Phil asked, thrown by the apparent non sequitur.

"Nobody was in the room when I woke up. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because I didn't know about you then. Now I do. You had the watch. You would not willingly have left my side and risked me waking up alone like I did. Nothing short of a dire emergency could have dragged you away," Steve said. He caught Phil's eye with an intense look. "So I've been wondering. Who got hurt, Clint or Natasha?"

Phil swallowed hard. "Clint. Someone shoved him off a building," Phil admitted. It hadn't been too serious in the end, but he never would have forgiven himself if it _had_ and he wasn't there for Clint. That didn't make him feel any better about failing his other duty. He'd let Steve down, badly. Phil couldn't ignore that any longer. "Steve, I never said this before, but I'm sorry. I am _so sorry_ that I wasn't there when you woke up." 

"I lived," Steve said. "You couldn't be in two places at once. Gotta wonder if someone _planned_ it that way."

Phil had gone over that possibility with a fine-toothed comb ... made of razor wire. He couldn't prove anything, but Hawkeye and Black Widow had both been sent on dangerous missions with substitute handlers. It wasn't always necessary to arrange the accident, just the _opportunity_ for one. Director Fury knew Phil well; that made manipulation easier. And look who had been there to rescue Steve from the bedlam of the modern world. That was all very convenient.

"There's nothing to prove," Phil said at last. "Clint got a knock on the head and some colorful bruises. I went to check on him, you woke up, and people handled it badly. That's all. I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry for my part in that mess."

"I forgive you," Steve said softly.

And _oh,_ Phil hadn't been expecting that, but it untied a taut knot in his chest. "Thanks," he managed. Steve just nodded.

This, Phil thought, _this_ was why people would follow Steve Rogers over the edge of the Earth: because he would always think of others and what they needed, even if he was the one hurting. But then who took care of Steve?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See an illustration of [Bruce and Natka under the coffee table](http://habquchdu.tumblr.com/post/123406595874/simple-little-picture-i-drew-to-get-used-to-krita) by Ari the Dodecahedron.


	6. The Things You Missed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil explains more of the parameters and appeal of the teambuilding exercise to Steve. It takes them a little while to figure out something they think will work for Steve. And then Steve wonders what Phil is getting out of this ...

"What kind of game are you playing?" Steve asked then. "I mean, you don't have to tell me. You invited me before and I turned you down. I'm just ... kinda curious about the bathrobe."

"Well, my original idea didn't work out," Phil admitted. How could he explain this so it would make sense to Steve? Phil wanted him to feel intrigued, not uncomfortable. "I switched to a different plan. Have you ever felt like you missed something growing up?"

"All the time," Steve said. "It was the Depression. We didn't have much."

"Ever wish you could go back and change that? Do the things you missed, or maybe redo something to turn out better?" Phil asked.

_"If only,"_ Steve said, the rest of the thought swallowed up by a crack in his voice. And there it was, the yawning void in his life left by the loss of everyone he had known. Phil worried about that. Steve needed anchors in the here and now, and since he didn't care a great deal about possessions, that meant he needed people. But Steve wasn't reaching out much, even to his own teammates.

"Well, that's what we're doing. We're playing a little game of make-believe to catch up on things we missed and do over what went wrong," Phil explained. "Everyone else is pretending to be little, so they can let go of responsibility for a while, and I'm pretending to be Uncle Phil the babysitter. It's pretty relaxing. You're welcome to come give it a try."

"I'm not ... sure I can do that," Steve admitted slowly. "Growing up, it was always me and Bucky, you know? The two of us against the world. We were like brothers, and now he's _gone."_ Steve hiccupped a little, clearly trying not to cry. From his perspective, that loss was still very recent. "I don't think I could put anyone else in his place. I don't want another big brother, I want my Bucky back."

Phil couldn't blame him. "What about something different, then?" he said. "You're the team leader. We want the others to look up to you naturally, and take over when their skills merit it, not fight over who's in charge all the time. You might think about being the big brother yourself."

"I never had a chance to do that," Steve said.

"This exercise is all about second chances, giving us the opportunity to do things we never could before," Phil pointed out. "How do you _feel_ about playing the part of an older brother and helping me take care of the younger kids?"

"I think I like it," Steve said. He chewed on his lip as he mulled over the idea. "I enjoy looking after people. Didn't you say the point was to let go of responsibility, though?"

"If that's what people need," Phil said. "There's no reason you can't do a little of both. Everyone seems to be gravitating toward an age that works for them. Clint and Natasha have experimented a little but usually stick with eight and seven years old, respectively. Tony's parked at four. Bruce has been everything from two to six, though we figured out pretty fast that it doesn't work when he's older than Tony, it makes them both uncomfortable. He's currently hovering around three or three and a half."

"How many times has Bruce throwing a tantrum turned into Hulk making an appearance?" Steve asked.

"Zero," Phil said.

Steve's eyebrows went up. "He never Hulks out while you're playing? Even if he loses a game or gets hurt or something?" 

This was not an idle question. Shortly after moving in, Bruce had dropped a blender on his foot, Hulked out, and wrecked half the kitchen. Fortunately Tony Stark was made of money and could afford to replace it, but still. Natasha had been there and it set back her tolerance by weeks.

"He hasn't so far," Phil said. "I don't think it's just about Bruce feeling a little safer or more relaxed. I think something in the exercise helps Hulk feel like he doesn't _need_ to come out."

"Golly," Steve said. 

Phil could only nod. After all the crazy and sometimes dangerous things that Bruce had cooked up trying to suppress or destroy his alter ego, the one thing that actually showed some progress was this quiet role-playing. Phil had a tentative hypothesis that, with Bruce allowing _himself_ to express some of the things he usually bottled up, Hulk felt less compelled to burst out and handle those _for_ him. The time Bruce had tripped over a chair and skinned his knee, he actually _cried_ over it until Phil patched him up with a couple of cartoon band-aids. This from the man who hadn't shed a tear after his new best friend almost died saving New York from a nuclear bomb. Hulk had howled Tony awake; Bruce had never so much as mentioned the matter.

"So what age do you think I should be?" Steve asked.

"That's up to you," Phil said. 

"Maybe ... ten?" Steve said.

"Sure, let's give that a try," Phil said. It was older than the others, enough to help watch them, but still young enough for Steve to need plenty of adult supervision himself. "Just think back to when you were that age. Find some happy memories to focus on. That will help you get a feel for the exercise."

"What do _you_ get out of this, Phil?" asked Steve. "I mean, everyone else gets to goof off, but you're ... kinda still doing the same job as usual."

"I get to take care of people," Phil explained, "and they _let me_. I value that tremendously. Do you realize how hard it is to convince the Avengers to slow down, eat real food, sleep regularly, or tell anyone about a problem? We're still working out the dynamics, but we're learning. That's a good thing." Phil sighed. "I also get to make up for not being there when you needed me. For not getting there in time. Everyone on the team got roughed up, one way or another, before you all came into my life. I can't undo that, but I can do some damage control now that I'm here. That makes me feel better."

"Okay, yeah," Steve said. "I get that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Demisexual](http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual) means someone who does not feel sexual attraction on a casual basis, but can only develop it after a close nonsexual relationship has formed first. Sometimes they are [late bloomers](http://stefanbc.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/i-was-a-late-bloomer-and-thats-okay/), though not always; people can mature at any rate. If your sexuality is the obvious one that society expects, you're more likely to catch on quickly because the easy answer is right in front of you. But if it's something different, the process may be less clear and can take longer for some people, especially if they need to explore different options before finding what fits them. In particular it can be difficult to distinguish between [asexual and late bloomer](http://asexystuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/youre-not-asexual-youre-just-late.html), demisexual, or [gray-asexual](http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Grey-A). This is especially true if they have little or no experience in matters of sex/romance.


	7. Climbing the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little-Tony finds a loophole in Uncle Phil's instructions. Steve helps straighten out the resulting situation.

Just then Clint's voice floated through the door. "Uncle Phil! Tony's climbing on the television set!"

"It's like turning your back on the ocean," Phil muttered, yanking the door open. "Tony Carter, what did I tell you before I left?" Phil saw Steve twitch at the name, but Steve said nothing about it.

"Not to break anything while you were gone," Tony said. He was clinging to the rack of electronics that framed the large viewscreen on the wall. "You didn't say I couldn't _fix_ anything." 

"My mistake," Phil said. As he watched, Tony's footie-clad toes slipped on the metal, then found a better hold. "Get down before you fall down."

"But I almost got it working right!" Tony protested. He had a firm grip on the shelving and an utterly stubborn set to his jaw. The installation didn't so much as creak under his weight; knowing Tony, it might have been _designed_ that way. Tony watched Phil while twiddling with a knob.

Phil felt certain this was _exactly_ how a four-year-old Tony had acted. The guarded look in his eyes still made Phil's heart ache. Little-Tony misbehaved constantly so he could get attention, and even more, so he could get scolded instead of smacked. Phil silently wished his parents into the fifth circle of hell.

"Why is he climbing the wall instead of just standing in front of the viewscreen like usual?" Steve whispered to Phil.

"Because a four-year-old couldn't reach the viewscreen from the floor, so he has to go up the shelves," Phil replied. Then he turned back to Tony. "If you come down from the electronics now, I'll let you off with a lecture. If you keep this up, you're not getting hot chocolate before bed."

"I'll get him," Steve murmured, moving past Phil.

Tony immediately let go of the shelves with one hand so he could cover his chest. It wasn't about the arc reactor this time, Phil realized, because that was blocked by a hidden layer of black felt. No, Tony was trying to cover up the star on the chest of his pajamas, a vintage-era Captain America uniform replicated in soft fleece.

"What seems to be the problem, squirt?" Steve asked.

"Everyone's mad at me 'cause I'm bad," Tony said.

"You're not bad, and I'm not mad at you," Steve assured him.

"Not even about my jammies?" Tony asked, looking up at Steve through dark eyelashes. Tony wasn't a large man to begin with, and Steve was so tall that he towered over everyone else, even with Tony clinging to the wall of electronics.

"I think your jammies are swell," Steve said. "Now come here, you're scaring Uncle Phil." He peeled Tony off the shelving, apparently intending to set him on the floor.

Instead Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's neck and his legs around the sturdy waist. Steve quickly put one hand under Tony's hips and the other behind his back. "What's this all about?" Steve asked.

"You're big and strong. You make me feel safe," Tony said into the soft hollow of Steve's throat where his cheek pressed against warm skin.

Phil saw the emotions flicker across Steve's face: confusion, compassion, discomfort, an exasperated fondness. Clearly this was weird for Steve, but it was also weirdly adorable to have Tony plastered all over him like a red-white-and-blue octopus. As Phil watched, Steve slowly shifted a hand up to cup the back of Tony's head, stroking the short dark hair.

"Should I be carrying him?" Steve asked Phil. He seemed to be wavering between adult mode and trying on his new ten-year-old role. Unlike the others, Steve was having a harder time with the concept of the exercise, possibly because he had less practical experience to draw on. Phil remembered the embarrassingly bad performances in the USO films.

"If it feels right to both of you," Phil said.

"So, um, are we all supposed to be related, or what?" Steve mumbled to Phil. "I don't know how to do this."

"Steve, don't try to force it," Phil said gently. "Just think yourself back to when you were younger, and do what comes naturally. You'll be fine." There was something genuinely childlike in all of them, Phil realized: Clint's sass, Natasha's malleability, Tony's curiosity, Bruce's simplicity, Steve's innocence. It gave them something to build on, once they figured out how to work with it.

"Okay," Steve said. He carried Tony to the couch and deposited him carefully on the cushions.

No sooner had he done that than Bruce crawled out from under the coffee table and declared, "You look like my cousin."

Phil held his breath. This was the first time that Bruce had really reached out to connect with anyone else of his own volition. Most of the time he just followed Tony's lead, or more rarely, Natka's.

"We can be cousins if you want," Steve said amiably. Phil smiled; this wasn't going quite according to plan but at least Steve was going along with it now.

"Uh-huh." Bruce held out his arms in an unmistakable _pick-me-up_ gesture. Steve bent down and lifted him. Unlike Tony, Bruce didn't help; he lay pliant in the larger man's grasp. Steve swung him into a bridal carry. As an adult, Bruce tended to shy away from physical contact; little-Bruce was shy too, but more willing to touch.

"Tony's right. You feel safe," Bruce said. Steve obligingly cuddled him for several minutes until he squirmed to get down. As soon as his feet touched the floor, Bruce vanished back into his refuge. Like Natka, he felt more comfortable out of direct line of sight.

"I thought you said to think of my _happy_ memories of childhood," Steve muttered to Phil. "Why's half the team hiding under the coffee table?"

Phil sighed very softly. "In some ways, Steve, you were the lucky one. Not everyone has a lot of happy memories to draw on; they're doing the best that they can."

"Oh," Steve said, his blue eyes darkening toward storm. "I _see."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [fifth circle of hell](http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle5.html#wrath) contains those damned by wrath and sullenness.


	8. A Little Overdressed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil helps make Steve presentable for the current exercise.

"Things usually lighten up when we start the actual games," Phil said, with a nod to the frozen Smurf images on the viewscreen. The team needed time to interact as _people,_ not just superheroes, as casually as possible. That was another reason for choosing this particular exercise. Slowly but surely, they were learning to live with each other -- and with themselves. "Being out of uniform helps too." 

"Yeah, I feel a little overdressed," Steve admitted. He wasn't in uniform but was in a button-down shirt and neatly pressed trousers. Bruce wore brown-and-tan plaid footie pajamas, while Natka's were white with little dancing bears printed all over.

"So go change clothes," Phil said. 

Steve blushed. "I, um, don't have anything appropriate to wear. I just sleep in my skivvies."

Fury hadn't bothered to provide _sleepwear?_ And of course Steve, with his Depression-era background, wouldn't spend money on anything nonessential. Phil fumed, but kept his temper carefully off his face. "Then it's a good thing I came prepared," he said. After Tony showed up unexpectedly, Phil had stocked the game closet with everything he could imagine needing. He brought out a package still wrapped in its original tissue paper from the shipping box. "Here you go."

Steve peeled back the layers to reveal vintage-style Brooklyn Dodgers uniform pajamas rendered in thick flannel. There were matching house shoes in the same practical model as Phil's own, with synthetic soles for traction on smooth floors. The set made a subtle, elegant compromise between historic and modern elements. _"Oh,"_ Steve breathed. "I always _wanted_ something like this but we could never afford --" He flung his arms around Phil in a tight hug. "Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome," Phil said as Steve let go. Steve seemed to have an easier time with this exercise when reacting to other people, rather than trying to think of actions on his own. So Phil gave him another prompt. "Now go change clothes and wash up. I'll reheat the leftover SpaghettiOs for you, and there are a few breadsticks left too." He didn't ask if Steve was hungry, because with the super-soldier metabolism, Steve was _always_ hungry.

"I don't want to be any trouble. You don't have to --" Steve began.

"I am not feeding you cold supper," Phil said firmly. He turned Steve toward the bathroom and gave him a gentle push between the shoulderblades. "Go. It'll be ready when you come back." Sending Steve to wash would also give Phil a chance to microwave a package of peas and carrots, because Steve _liked_ vegetables.

By the time Steve came out, dressed in his new pajamas, Phil had finished Tony's scolding (half of dozen variations of "Don't do things that could get you hurt!") and also had the food ready. Steve looked squeaky clean -- but his hair was a _bird's nest_. He never showed up looking so sloppy. He must have run wet fingers through his hair to make it stand up like that. 

_Now why in the world would he do that? It's completely unlike him,_ Phil thought.

Steve looked at Phil with an expectant expression. "I washed up," he announced.

_Clearly he wants something out of this, but what?_ Phil wondered. Then he remembered the single grainy photo rescued from Erskine's records, taken at the recruitment station, showing a pre-serum, _pre-army_ Steve. His hair had looked just like that, a hopelessly tangled mess. Who would have thought that something like hair would change? Yet apparently it had. Super-Steve's hair tended to stay perfectly in place unless he stuck his head outside the Helicarrier. Little-Steve, not so much.

Phil made a show of frowning at him. "It looks to me like you washed your hands and face, but forgot to comb your hair."

"Sorry, sir," Steve said. He ducked his head and shuffled his feet. "I comb it but it never stays."

"Bring me the comb," Phil instructed. 

Soon Steve came back with one of the little plastic combs that they kept as spares in all the bathrooms. Now Phil thought back to some of the other old photos of Steve. He'd worn his hair differently than the more modern style he used now. Carefully Phil stroked the comb through Steve's hair, flicking the part into place along a perfectly straight line. It stayed put.

"There now, that's better," Phil said. 

"Thanks, Uncle Phil," Steve said with a smile. So Phil had guessed right.

"Eat your supper," Phil said, guiding him to the couch. 

Steve glanced at the large amount of food on the coffee table, then gave Phil a dubious look. "Um ..." said Steve.

"And clean your plate," Phil added. He had a suspicion that Steve wasn't eating enough, because he never kept eating after other people stopped. If he didn't snack between meals, he couldn't possibly keep up with his body's enhanced demands. So Phil had simply piled up four servings of everything, basing that on Steve's four-times-average metabolism.

It almost worked. Steve made his way through the SpaghettiOs and vegetables while Clint played the Smurf game again. Tony was playing peek-a-boo with Bruce around the coffee table. 

"Did you get enough to eat?" Phil asked when Steve finished.

"My plate's clean," Steve said earnestly. His blue eyes looked huge and bright as he met Phil's gaze. 

_Gotcha,_ Phil thought. So Steve _was_ shorting himself. If he hadn't been eating properly, no wonder a normal-for-Steve portion hadn't filled him up. 

"That's not what I asked," Phil said. "Are you still hungry, Steve? Tell me the _truth,_ not what you think is polite."

"Yes, sir," Steve admitted, looking down.

"Then I'll go get dessert," Phil said. There was a chocolate cake in the kitchen. He cut it in half, then reduced one half to five slices to be distributed among the team. He put the remaining half in front of Steve. 

"You don't have to eat that all at once," Phil explained, "but I do expect you to finish it by the end of game night."

Steve gave him a nervous smile and dug into the cake. Phil made a mental note to remind him -- in private -- that it wasn't necessary to "make things last" anymore, that Steve could eat as much as he needed. It wouldn't do him _or_ the team any good if he went light-headed because he hadn't filled up properly.

Clint wolfed down his slice of cake and went back to the video game. Tony ate with brisk efficiency. Bruce and Natka savored theirs. She disappeared under the coffee table as soon as she was done. Bruce licked the icing off his plate with careful sweeps of his pink tongue. He watched Phil warily over the rim of the plate as he did so. Phil waited until Bruce finished, then wet a napkin and scrubbed the icing off his face. Only when Bruce was clean did Phil let him squirm away.

Tony leaned against Steve's legs, resting his head on one wide knee. Steve stroked a hand over Tony's head and down his back. His fingers traced the familiar stripes, sign of a lifelong devotion that had only just come together. "You were right about this," Steve murmured to Phil.

"Oh?" Phil said.

"It feels good to take care of people ... and the other part, too," Steve said.

Phil smiled. "Yes," he said simply.

Bruce crept out from under the coffee table to tug at Tony's sleeve. Tony rubbed against Steve's hand, then pulled away. Steve let him go. Carefully Steve stretched his long legs past the end of the coffee table so as to avoid the scramble of bodies on the floor.

Tony and Bruce started playing Concentration with cards that they had drawn in crayon, illustrating the elements of the periodic table. Tony swore that his father had played with a set of similar cards when Tony was little. Phil suspected that Howard had indeed owned some kind of element cards but that they hadn't been the game a younger Tony had thought. The crayons had been a fun touch, though. 

Phil could hardly wait to see Steve's reaction to the box of 120 Crayolas. The tower had an actual art studio stocked with all kinds of supplies, because Tony wanted Steve to feel at home. But nothing compared to flopping down on the carpet to color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Concentration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_\(game\)) is a memory game where players try to find pairs of matching cards. It can be played with pretty much any subject matter.
> 
> 120 is currently the largest box of crayons [offered by Crayola](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors)


	9. What Is Real?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natka reaches out to Steve and asks him to read her a story.

Steve was halfway through his piece of cake when Natka slowly crept out from under the coffee table. "Здравствуйте," she said. _Hello_.

"Здравствуйте," Steve replied in serviceable Russian. Then to Phil's surprise, he continued, "Меня зовут Степан. Как тебя зовут?" _My name is Steve. What's your name?_

"Меня зовут Натка," she said. _My name is Natka_.

Phil was thrilled. She almost never spoke Russian outside a mission. He watched the interaction very quietly and very closely, hoping it would unfold well. He'd had such hopes for them, early on, because Steve came from a time when America and Russia were _allies_. Most people treated Agent Romanova with wary reserve. She returned it with guarded respect, or indifference in the case of people she didn't find respectable. That was tolerable on a mission, but less so on a personal level. She needed allies. She needed _friends_. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to have a Captain America with more fluency in Russian.

Natka switched back to English and said, "Would you read to me?" She handed Steve a comb-bound booklet that Phil had painstakingly pieced together from English and Russian sources, so that it read _Винни-Пух_ down the left-hand pages and _Winnie-the-Pooh_ down the right.

"Sure," Steve said. The Russian was just simple enough for him to manage it, although he got the most adorable frown-line between his eyes, and it sounded as if he were sight-reading some of the words rather than actually understanding them.

Then he stumbled over слонопатат. "I have no idea what this is," Steve said. 

"I know! I know!" said Tony, popping up the from the floor. Because of course he knew Russian from his arms dealing, though where he'd learned _that_ word, Phil had no idea. Phil himself had only found it when making the booklet for Natka. Maybe Tony had seen it there too.

"Let Steve work it out for himself," Phil said. He had a suspicion that Steve was a lot smarter than anyone, including Steve, realized yet. Theoretically, the serum enhanced _everything,_ but nobody had wanted Steve for his brains. Idiots. Phil hoped that Steve was familiar with Winnie-the-Pooh canon, or this wouldn't work. The material was old enough, though. "Steve, what does the first part of the word remind you of?" 

Natka watched them expectantly. Maybe Phil wasn't the only one with suspicions about Steve's intelligence.

"Well, слон means elephant," Steve said slowly, "but there aren't any elephants in this -- _oh! Heffalump!"_ He bounced in place on the cushions, causing the entire couch to shake under his weight. His grin was radiant.

Beside him, Natka giggled. "I knew you could get it," she said.

Now Bruce scrambled out from under the coffee table, and Clint dropped the game controller, to turn and stare at her. Even Phil was staring, though he made himself stop as soon as he realized it. Natasha never giggled except when a mission called for it. She rarely even _laughed_. What she needed most from this exercise was the chance to discover the sweeter aspects of childhood that she had missed. Phil had done his best to provide that, but this was a marked improvement. The "kids" responded differently to each other than they did to him.

Natka nudged Steve to start him reading again, and he picked up where he left off, telling the story of Winnie-the-Pooh and the heffalumps. Tony and Bruce crawled beneath the coffee table to sit by Steve's feet. Clint abandoned the Smurfs to drape himself over the back of the couch. Phil discreetly turned off the video game and settled back to listen himself. He liked Winnie-the-Pooh who, for a bear of very little brain, was uncommonly _wise_. 

"The End," Steve concluded at last.

"Read another," Natka said.

"Let someone else take a turn picking the next story," Phil said. He hated to interfere between Natka and Steve, but he really wanted to emphasize taking turns. The Avengers did poorly at that in combat, and it undercut their tactical potential. Even Steve tended to assign individual tasks based on their skills, rather than directing them to work together. Playing games could help support the idea of taking turns and cooperating.

_"Where the Wild Things Are,"_ Tony said, at the same time Bruce and Clint chorused, _"The Velveteen Rabbit."_

"Okay, I hear two votes for _The Velveteen Rabbit,_ so let's do that one next. I haven't read it in a long time," Steve said. "Then maybe Uncle Phil will read us _Where the Wild Things Are_. I don't know that one." 

It had come out while Steve was under the ice, Phil realized, looking forward to introducing Steve to a favorite book. _The Velveteen Rabbit_ was another 1920s classic, though. 

"I'll get it!" Clint said. He scampered to the game closet, brought the book to Steve, then resumed his perch on the back of the couch. Phil made a mental note to revisit the catalogs with an eye toward acquiring a couch that had a wider, firmer back so Clint could be more comfortable in his preferred use of furniture.

Steve read the story in a warm, even voice. Phil could tell from the emotion he put into certain scenes that Steve found the rabbit's transformation especially moving. Phil himself agreed. It amazed him how many children's stories resonated closely with even the more esoteric experiences that his team had. Not everyone seemed to feel the same, though.

By the time Steve finished reading, Natka was frowning faintly. "You don't like this book?" Steve asked.

Natka shook her head. "It's dumb. Life doesn't work that way," she said. Then she sniffed a little. "Love doesn't make things real, no matter how much you want it to."

"Does too," Tony said. "DUM-E is real!" Hard to argue with that one: the clunky little robot had saved Tony's life once, and he loved it with a fiercely burning loyalty.

"What is real?" Bruce quoted softly.

Steve pulled Natka onto his lap and said, "Love is the strongest thing in the world, Natka. It's just confusing sometimes, so we don't always understand it. That doesn't mean it can't work miracles. Bucky and I were brothers, even though we weren't born that way. It was something we chose for ourselves. Being his brother was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it was love that made it real."

Natka said nothing more, but her hand crept up to clasp Clint's fingers. He slid off the back of the couch to pile on top of her and Steve. On the floor, Tony wrapped himself around Steve's legs. Bruce edged over to press against Phil, since little of Steve remained in reach. Phil picked him up and cuddled him. Tony crawled up and somehow wedged himself between Steve and the armrest.

Phil looked around at his team, packed tightly onto the couch, and hoped that Steve knew what he was talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Winnie-the-Pooh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh) is a popular children's character now appearing in many formats. Yes, it has been translated into Russian, and yes, that's the word for heffalump. As far as I know, however, there isn't a half-and-half version bilingual in English and Russian, so I had Uncle Phil make one for Natka.
> 
> [The Velveteen Rabbit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velveteen_Rabbit) and [Where the Wild Things Are](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Wild_Things_Are) also top the lists of recommended reading for children.


	10. There Were Fond Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With all Avengers now in play, game nights gradually cycle through lively and quiet activities.

Steve proved enormously useful on game nights, because unlike Phil, he had the sheer physical strength to pick up and carry anyone else on the team. Clint, Tony, and Bruce all tended to fall asleep while sprawled over the furniture or floor in odd positions. ("I don't mind. He's not heavy.") Even Natka did it occasionally. This way someone could put them to bed -- or at least couch -- when needed. They were sleeping better, but Phil still preferred not to wake them unnecessarily. Besides, they looked cute cuddling up to Steve.

Phil also relied on Steve to detach Tony from various appliances and to lift Clint down from whatever cabinet top or air duct he'd climbed up to. ("How did you even get _up_ there? Nevermind, I don't want to know.") Phil knew, logically, that they were quite capable of taking care of themselves ... but he didn't like seeing them in positions that were _too_ precarious, not on a game night when he was supposed to be taking care of them. Though he did allow that riding on Steve's shoulders was as safe as anything ever could be.

As people relaxed around each other, they began playing more physical games. Sometimes it was hide-and-seek, pitting their different strengths against each other: Clint and Natka with their espionage experience, Steve and Bruce with their enhanced senses, Tony with a modest subset of his technology. ("I don't need superpowers to find my little angels. I'm omniscient. Didn't you know that?" They all solemnly assured Phil that they had.) Other times it was Twister, a favorite in a group of athletic and flexible people. ("Ow. Next round, we need to put extra padding around the arc reactor.") It was particularly fun when Tony proposed making disconnected spots that could be stuck to furniture or people as well as the floor. Phil did, in fact, buy a set of lightsabers, the tough neon foam kind meant for sparring. ("No, Tony, you _may not_ build a fully functional lightsaber!") JARVIS provided appropriate sound effects.

Phil finally introduced the truly cooperative games. They played Catch the Dragon's Tail, all holding hands, with the first person trying to snatch a handkerchief from the last person's pocket. They built people pyramids in different combinations, and scrunched together to see how small of a box they could somehow cram everyone on top of. ("It's still bigger than a breadbox!") They played Human Knot Puzzle, blindly grabbing each other's hands and then attempting to untangle themselves into a circle.

Of course, they still played competitive games too. One evening they dismantled the furniture in the common room to build two pillow forts and fought a war with beanbags. ("I got you, Steve! The best weapon is one you only have to fire ONCE!") Natka removed the center legboard from the coffee table and somehow never got around to putting it back. She and Bruce still crawled under there sometimes, but not as often now. 

Another time, Tony declared that the floor was a pool of lava and everyone obligingly scrambled onto the furniture. ("No, Clint, you _may not_ go get your grappling hook. Nor you, Natka.") JARVIS even turned the baseboard lighting to a vivid red. The whole team spent giddy minutes leaping between the various pieces of furniture which were, fortunately, built to take a beating.

Some nights, especially after a rough week when people were tired from combat, they just wanted to sit still. They read more books together. Phil also learned everyone's favorite movies: Disney's _Robin Hood_ (Clint), _Anastasia_ (Natka), _The Iron Giant_ (Tony), _Monsters, Inc._ (Bruce), and _Pinocchio_ (Steve). Phil's own favorite was _The Rescuers_. 

Phil brought out the big box of Crayolas -- Steve's eyes popped at the sight of that -- and a stack of coloring books. ("I had a box of _eight_. How'd they get to a hundred and twenty?") Steve went on to show them how to make "stained glass" designs by coloring on translucent paper. Collectively they wound up covering most of one window in the common room. Phil hung something from everyone, though the most impressive were Tony's delicately rendered helicopter blueprints and Steve's replica of a Madonna church window he'd seen in Russia.

There were fond moments that stuck in Phil's mind, that he took out and played over later when he needed to lift his own spirits a little --

\-- the brilliant sunshine of Steve's smile the first time he fell asleep during game night, and Phil greeted him with the time and date when he woke up.

\-- Bruce and Natka hiding together under the coffee table with a blanket draped over the top, and clinging to each other for comfort because _Monster House_ turned out be a creepier movie than anyone had expected.

\-- the time Tony lost a button from his jammies, asked Phil to fix it for him, and then stood perfectly still while Phil buttoned him back up, even as Phil's fingers passed over Tony's chest.

\-- Clint hearing Steve fumble a cultural reference, then stopping to explain it instead of teasing him for not knowing it.

\-- the Avengers baking Nestle's Toll House chocolate-chip cookies together, rich aroma filling the whole floor of the tower, and not one of the four dozen lasting long enough to cool completely.

\-- Phil under a pile of warm bodies in a tickle fight, everyone finally collapsing into stillness, and telling them, "I'm so glad you're all here."

After everything they'd gone through, individually and collectively, Phil felt incredibly honored by moments like these. It made him grateful that such fierce and powerful people would let him in, let him stand guard over them. They allowed him to see parts of themselves that nobody else got to see. They permitted him to take care of them, even though by now they could all take care of themselves if they had to, because it felt good to let someone else shoulder the weight for a little while. 

For himself, Phil treasured the opportunity to make things _right_. Just for a few hours, he didn't have to stand by and watch his people get thrown off buildings or shortchange themselves or lie through their teeth. He could make sure their needs got met, paying back a fraction of the tremendous debt that the world owed to them. He could hold safe the secrets they confided in him and, increasingly, each other. Maybe, he thought to himself, he'd gotten here in time after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Twister](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_\(game\)) does have a travel version with disconnected spots instead of a mat.
> 
> [Catch the Dragon's Tail](http://www.mrgym.com/Tag/DragonsTail.htm) is essentially a version of tag with everyone connected.
> 
> [Human Knot Puzzle](http://scoutermom.com/999/human-knot-game/) is a hand-holding game.
> 
> Explore the Avengers' favorite movies: Disney's _[Robin Hood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_\(1973_film\))_ (Clint), _[Anastasia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_\(1997_film\))_ (Natka), _[The Iron Giant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Giant)_ (Tony), _[Monsters, Inc.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters,_Inc.)_ (Bruce), _[Pinocchio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio_\(1940_film\))_ (Steve), _[The Rescuers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rescuers)_ (Phil).
> 
> [Monster House](http://whatculture.com/film/8-surprisingly-scary-animated-films-that-scarred-the-kids.php) is on the list of movies that are scarier than people anticipate.
> 
> See the [evolution of Crayola colors](https://fbcdn-photos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-0/11667400_1059485220730886_5870861015644607442_n.png?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=12cff7e103b0b18f5198cdd6491c69c4&oe=5630AC60&__gda__=1445081835_53103469ea0f8608f86412b35a81bbb5), thanks to [Trezelle2](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trezelle2).
> 
> Read [the history](http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventors/a/Chocolate_Chip.htm) and [the recipe](http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/18476/Original-NESTL%C3%89-TOLL-HOUSE-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/detail.aspx) for Nestle's Toll House chocolate-chip cookies.


	11. Something Like a Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natka discuss a personal decision.
> 
> Steve gets upset while watching television. (This section is major Steve!whump of the emotional variety, dealing with PTSD. It's hurt/comfort, not the fluff you've been reading.)
> 
> Tony reveals how much he's starting to rely on Phil.

Slowly but surely, the connections formed during game nights began to seep out into the rest of the week. Often Steve and Natasha spoke in Russian, sometimes joined by Clint. Bruce and Natasha made trips to a tea shop together. Clint and Tony tempered their characteristic snark just enough to stop accidentally hurting their own teammates with a careless remark, because they finally grew close enough to feel an echo of the pain themselves. 

Tony became just a little more Carter and a little less Stark, a sweet thread of honesty creeping through what had become a perilously thin veneer of showmanship. To Phil, that was a gratifying diminishment of the uglier side of Howard Stark's legacy. Watching Steve as Steve watched Tony, and the tender sorrow in his smile, Phil thought that perhaps Steve saw something of Peggy in Tony after all.

One by one, they began talking about some of the horrible things that had happened: Hawkeye's violation with Loki's staff, Black Widow's desperate gamble to capture instead of kill him, Iron Man's believed-at-the-time-suicidal trip to commit genocide against the Chitauri, Banner's despair over Hulk's inconsolable rage, Steve's shattering grief over losing every human being he'd ever known. If there were nightmares, there was no shortage of friends to sit up with afterwards -- or teddy bears, if things got bad enough for someone to wake up Uncle Phil. They were learning to take care of each other, learning to become something like a family.

Once after game night, when everyone else had gone to bed, Clint and Natka lingered behind with Phil. While the two of them talked, Phil busied himself tidying up the common room.

"I've been thinking," Nakta said. "I want to do it. I want to make it official."

"Are you sure?" Clint said. "It's a big step. I want this too, but not until you're really ready for it."

"I'm sure," Natka said.

"Because this wouldn't be like that stupid fake marriage that Fury made us do in Belgrade that time," Clint said. "This would be permanent."

Phil rubbed a hand over his face. That idea had turned into a disaster that nearly wrecked the assignment. Black Widow had been so disturbed by any kind of sexual connection to Hawkeye -- even just a paper one -- that she slept _under_ the hotel room's only bed for fear of hurting him if her predatory instincts suddenly mistook him for prey. Consequently they'd barely completed the mission and both came home injured. It had taken them weeks to regain their former comfort enough to sleep side-by-side again. Phil had verbally eviscerated the analysts in charge of mission prep, buried Director Fury in vengeful paperwork for a month, and strictly forbidden a repetition of that cover story (much to everyone's secret relief) _ever again_.

"I want it to be permanent," Natka said. "I want us to be part of each other's lives forever."

"Okay," Clint said, wrapping his arms around her. "Uncle Phil, that thing we talked about back in the beginning, that we weren't sure about? We're sure now."

Phil nodded. "I'll start on the paperwork tomorrow."

Then there was the afternoon Phil walked past the common room and thought he heard something. He paused, listening, outside the door. Phil trusted his instincts to alert him to the tiniest clue out of place. The television sounded faintly through the wall, but that wasn't what he thought he heard. Maybe he shouldn't intrude, but Phil was no more capable of walking away from that door than from any other potential battleground.

Phil slipped inside and found Steve sitting by himself, the flickering light reflecting wetly across his face. Phil didn't think it was a great idea for Steve to watch television alone, because triggers, because _whole minefield of triggers_ with really very little field between the landmines. Steve felt determined to adapt to modern life at any cost. Phil felt there must be a better way that would not blow so many holes in what was left of Steve's heart. 

On the viewscreen, images of a war documentary streamed past. Phil grabbed the remote and killed the program with extreme prejudice. _Don't do this to yourself, Steve,_ he thought. _This is so not good for you_. At least with someone riding shotgun, they had a chance to shut down a troublesome show before Steve took a _second_ hit. Left to his own devices, he tended to freeze up and take the whole barrage.

Steve didn't react to the interruption. He just sat there on the couch with tears trickling down his cheeks. His hands clenched against his hips, balled into fists. He held so still that Phil couldn't even see him breathing. A moment later Phil realized that Steve _wasn't_ breathing; he was actually holding his breath in an effort to remain silent. After a long minute, the air began to escape in an almost inaudible whine.

Phil sat down a cautious handspan away from him. The rigid body fought to remain motionless as the cushions shifted. Steve Rogers was a deeply private man when not forced into the limelight, and he'd pushed away offers of comfort more than once so that he could mourn without anyone watching. Phil would have to proceed very carefully indeed.

_Let me take care of you this time,_ Phil thought, watching Steve's face, impassive but for the silver river of tears. He'd had to call off the SHIELD psych staff early on, because they did more harm than good prying at the poor man. He wouldn't risk them breaking Steve. There were other ways.

"Steve? You know I'm here if you ever feel like talking, or just want me to sit with you and not say anything," Phil said aloud. _For the love of God, lean on somebody a little before you fall apart in ways we can't fix. It doesn't even have to be me, just pick_ somebody, _please_.

Steve made a muffled noise, as if he'd strangled a sob to death between his super-powered lungs. Ah, yes. _That's_ what Phil heard before.

It wasn't game night, and maybe Phil was about to cross a line that he shouldn't cross, but that wretched sound hurt him more than the memory of Loki's phantom spear through his heart. He could not simply sit there doing nothing. So he placed a hand on Steve's knee. His thumb traced a small circle over the cloth where the neat crease made a raised line. It felt like touching a statue of sun-warmed bronze, Steve was so tense.

"I was fine until I saw some guys that I knew," Steve said abruptly. "There was -- there was this picture from Berlin. I remember that day. My Lord, for me it was less than a year ago! And then the obituaries. They're dead now. Just. _Gone_. All of them -- everyone." 

The next sob got farther, managed to drag itself out into the air before dying of severe crush injuries. "They were so young, Phil. _So young_. We all were," Steve said. His hoarse voice rasped at Phil's ears. Steve still clung to his control with desperate strength.

Phil did not dare to break the fragile rapport with words, not yet. He simply squeezed Steve's knee, a silent reminder that he didn't have to go through this alone. That if he let go, this time there would be someone to catch him.

Steve finally dissolved into noisy tears. His chest heaved. His whole body shook. He began listing to the side. 

Phil caught him and pulled him gently onto his shoulder. "I'm here," he murmured. "I've got you." His hand came up to smooth over the perfect hair.

Steve was heavy, blubbering messily now, and Phil's shirt soaked through in seconds. Phil didn't care. He held on until Steve cried himself to sleep in his lap. Without being asked, JARVIS dimmed the lights.

A sound, small and deliberate, caught Phil's attention. He looked up to see Clint and Natasha standing in the doorway. Phil crooked a finger at them, then touched it to his lips for silence, and pointed at the closet. The two spies nodded. They crossed the room without a whisper of noise, fetched a white fleece blanket, and spread it over Steve.

Then they settled around him, so carefully that he did not stir from his exhausted sleep, even when they enclosed his huge hands in their smaller ones. There was no changing the past for any of them, but they could at least comfort each other through the wake of it.

That was the last time Steve watched television alone.

One morning Bruce came into the communal kitchen looking for the freshly delivered bagels that JARVIS had just announced. He found Tony making coffee for himself and Phil, both hands plastered with band-aids. "What did you do to yourself this time?" Bruce demanded. "And why is this the first _I'm_ finding out about it? I thought we had an agreement."

Phil said nothing, waiting to see how Tony would handle this. Tony looked at Phil, found no help there, and looked nervously at Bruce. Bruce crossed his arms.

Steve strolled into the kitchen to grab a box of bagels and a carton of cream cheese. "What agreement?" he asked. "And do we have lox for these? I'm _hungry."_

"We do indeed," Phil said, passing Steve one of the packages. Steve opened all his bagels and began layering lox thickly onto the top halves. 

"Tony promised not to cover up lab injuries without letting somebody else make sure they aren't serious; I promised not to experiment on myself without somebody else present in case it goes wrong," Bruce said. "I'm waiting for an explanation, Tony."

"I was welding the greaves for my new suit, and the nozzle on my blowtorch clogged a bit. Threw some sparks farther than usual, and I wound up with tiny blisters all over the back of my hands," Tony said as he poured the coffee. With casual familiarity, he prepared one to Phil's liking and passed it over the table to him. "Steve? Coffee?"

Steve nodded, mouth full of bagel. Tony got out the heavy cream and the vanilla extract to fix Steve's cup. He was teaching Steve how to cram extra calories into familiar things. Phil silently approved of this.

"That still doesn't explain why you're covered in Mickey, Donald, and Goofy," Bruce said to Tony.

"This I gotta hear -- ooo! Bagels!" Clint said as he dropped down from the ceiling. Phil had given up trying to discourage him from crawling through the air ducts, and instead demanded that Tony reinforce them to Clint's specs. 

Natasha followed Clint into the kitchen, each of them snagging a bagel from the second box. "I confess to a certain amount of curiosity myself," she said.

"Yeah, well, it would've been too awkward trying to do the band-aids myself with both hands messed up. You were still asleep, Bruce. So I, um, cameupandaskedPhiltohelp," Tony mumbled in a rush. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "He was in the common room at the time ..."

"I did offer to get plain band-aids out of the first-aid kit in the kitchen," Phil said mildly. He insisted on having a kit in every major room, because several of the Avengers were accident-prone and enemies had attacked the tower in the past. After the game night tradition got started, he'd restocked the common room kit with cartoon band-aids. But this was still the first time any of the team had willingly requested help for anything less than a serious injury, outside of game night. When Tony actually sought him on purpose, Phil felt that he'd finally earned the skittish man's trust.

"Nah, these are fine," Tony said.

"I think they're cute. We never had anything like that when I was growing up," Steve said.

"I'm good with 'em too," Clint said.

"Though it is a pity there are no princesses," Natasha said.

Phil made a mental note to buy more kiddie band-aids and distribute them throughout the tower.


	12. I Believe in You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce brings up the touchy issue of Thor. Clint brings up the even touchier issue of Loki. And there are little plastic dinosaurs.

Bruce was the one who raised an issue they'd all been thinking about in various ways. "This is nice," he said as they were setting up a mass of plastic dinosaurs. "I'll miss it when it stops."

"Maybe it doesn't have to stop," Clint said tentatively. He emptied a bag pterodactyls onto the coffee table.

"The good stuff always goes away," Bruce said, and the other "kids" nodded, because they each had their own experiences with that.

"Not anymore," Uncle Phil assured them. "We can keep doing this as long as people want to." Tony and Steve, Clint and Natka smiled at that. Bruce frowned a little. Sometimes it took him a bit longer to get into role, especially if he'd been thinking about something and his brain wouldn't shut up long enough to let him relax. 

"What about when Thor comes back?" Bruce asked. "He and the Big Kid don't play well together."

"You can't say _you can't play,"_ Natka reminded him. She handed him the largest sauropod, his favorite.

"We have rules about not being mean and not hitting," Steve added. "If Thor wants to play, then he has to follow the rules like everyone else." He picked out the drab dinosaurs familiar from his childhood. Some of the others had tiger stripes or giraffe spots or even louder coloration. Steve was determined to learn the modern names for the ones that had changed, though.

Phil thought that this teambuilding exercise could do Thor a world of good, if he could be convinced to give it a fair try. _Let's hear it for Odin's A+ parenting,_ Phil thought sourly. Odin managed to outstrip even Tony's and Bruce's fathers for sheer oblivious stupidity and bloody-minded mayhem, not to mention having a far longer span of time in which to make ghastly mistakes that hurt people. That had already impacted the team, as witness Loki's hysterical bid for attention and Thor's inept handling of Hulk. So maybe this would help, as it had for the other Avengers. Though it would be a challenge trying to explain Midgardian games to Thor.

"What if Thor wants to bring _Loki?"_ Clint asked. "I mean, they fight all the time but they've been together like _forever."_

That was a valid point. From Thor's point of view, he and Loki were brothers and that meant inseparable. No matter what Loki did, Thor always wanted to reach out to him. If Thor got a good look at their game nights -- if he grasped what the exercise could actually _do_ \-- then Clint was right. Thor would head straight for Loki. And then what?

Very delicately, Phil touched a memory as sharp and bright as a shard of glass: the moments in which Loki's staff had connected them before the Life Model Decoy had shorted out. Phil had sensed a lifetime of misery in that brief span. He wondered what, if anything, Loki had gathered in return. Phil _really_ needed to talk to Thor about some of what had happened to Loki, in the interest of not having a repeat of the Battle of New York or other horrific incidents. Also he wanted to throttle Odin, but that was an impractical fantasy.

"How would you feel about that, Clint?" Phil asked. It was one thing to rule _you can't say you can't play_ for the Avengers, because they were a team and they all needed to work fluently together. It was quite another to extend that rule beyond the team. Phil wasn't willing to risk breaking a functional group by trying to add an incompatible person. And yet ... there was Thor to consider, who _did_ belong to the team. Loki was a part of him in ways nobody but Thor seemed to understand. _Cut Loki and Thor bleeds, though_. Phil understood that much. It worried him, to have that one piece out of reach, out of his influence, where he couldn't calculate or mitigate the potential damage.

"I'm not sure," Clint said slowly. Phil could hear him wavering along the age line, not wholly little-Clint nor adult but a blend of the two. Clint ran a fingertip over the pterodactyl that he always chose first. Its wings hadn't formed properly in the mold, just two stubs of plastic. Tony had fashioned new wings out of delicately bent paperclips and aluminum foil. "If you'd asked me a few months ago, I would've said -- I see that guy again, I'm gonna shoot him in the face. But now? I dunno." He shook his head. "I also would've said, Natasha and Bruce couldn't be friends. Never thought I'd sleep through the night again either. So I guess sometimes things change."

Phil suddenly wondered what _Clint_ had seen in Loki. Clint was far more perceptive than most people realized; his vision extended to more than just aiming a weapon. He'd seen potential in the rogue Black Widow, once, that _nobody_ else had ever seen. Clint had a lot more than a few moments to see through Loki. The possession gave him more than enough time to acquire a target lock on Loki's heart that no amount of cognitive reboot could ever shake loose. And he ... hadn't used it. Clint had kept his attacks purely physical, used only tactical and strategic knowledge of Loki's behavior. On a personal level, he'd fired no more than the equivalent of nerf arrows. This, after Loki had taken ruthless advantage of the knowledge _he_ gained from Clint, in the most personal manner possible. That hinted at reasons Clint hadn't spoken aloud.

"You've done stuff for us that I wouldn't have believed if you told us about it before it happened," Clint said to Phil.

"You've done the hard work yourselves," Phil said, although he knew Clint had a point too. It had taken careful distraction to get them far enough along to do some good before they realized everything that was going on, so they wouldn't panic and bail out on him.

"I guess what I mean is, I believe in _you_. So I won't say _you can't play,"_ Clint declared. "When Thor comes back, though, we gotta talk things through first or somebody could get hurt again. I'm not so good at that kind of talking; that's more your thing. If Thor wants to bring up Loki, well ..." Emotions flickered across Clint's face, anger and hurt and confusion, and something that might have been pity. "It'd be a _lot_ to work through, is all."

Phil nodded. "I promise you all that we will discuss everything very thoroughly before adding anyone else to this exercise," he said. "What we have now is working; I won't risk that. We'll need to consider whether any new addition would benefit the team." Their trust was heartwarming, though.

"Okay then," Clint said, tension uncoiling.

"We really don't have to stop?" Bruce said.

"We really don't," Phil said. Bruce huffed a sigh and put his head in Phil's lap. Phil ruffled his hair. 

"Okay," Bruce said. He scrambled up, still clutching his favorite sauropod. "Will you tell us all the dinosaur names again?"

"RAWR," Tony said, waving a tyrannosaur. Natka waved back with a velociraptor.

"Once upon a time," Phil began, "people found some funny-looking bones that didn't come from any animal they recognized. The bones looked a bit like lizard bones, but they were much bigger. So the scientists made a new word from two old words that the Greeks left behind: _deinos_ for terrible and _sauros_ for lizard. That was the beginning of dinosaurs ..."


	13. We're Not Going Anywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury gives the Avengers a hard time for blocking out teambuilding time on their schedule. Uncle Phil gives Fury a piece of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a slightly more angsty chapter, and it contains harsher language than average for this story.

It wasn't long after then that Director Fury called, wanting them to come for a meeting on a game night. Their schedule marked that time as unavailable, but that didn't stop him. Fury was still sulking over the fact that Agent Coulson had modified all the SHIELD records, at the request of Clint and Natasha Barton, to reflect their status as brother and sister. It made him snappish.

Uncle Phil answered the phone, because they were still setting things up for play -- and finishing dessert, a batch of turtle brownies -- and he hadn't gotten around to shutting down non-emergency communications yet. "You know this time is blocked out, and you know why," he said. "This is our night for teambuilding. I'm reminding you as a courtesy that the Avengers are only available tonight in case of a genuine crisis."

They all huddled together, Clint clutching the box of Mouse Trap that they had intended to teach Steve tonight. They were already in their jammies, but had their fingers near buttons and zippers as if expecting to have their downtime taken away from them.

Over Phillip Coulson's _permanently_ dead body.

He covered the phone with one hand, blotting out Fury's rant, and said, "Sit down, we're not going anywhere." Tony, Clint, and Natka crowded onto the couch. Bruce clung to Steve and refused to budge, so Steve picked him up and carried him there.

Phil put the phone back to his ear. Fury was complaining about the time off duty. "Nobody can be on call 24/7, forever," Phil said. "Turbo is a button you push and release, not push and tape down, unless you want something to explode." He'd had enough trouble teaching Tony that without Fury undoing his hard work, and the rest of them weren't much better at respecting their limits without a firm reminder.

Blah blah blah superpowers, blah blah blah only team we've got, blah blah blah can't afford --

"I'm cleaning up the mess _you_ made of _my_ assets. They _need_ their teambuilding time, if you want to have a team that actually functions as such in the field. This is _working,_ Director, don't argue with success," Phil said.

Phil wasn't sure what Fury actually said next, because JARVIS spliced in an excerpt of _Charlie Brown_ telephone talk: _wawawaWAAwawa?!_ Even the seasoned spy had trouble not giggling at that.

"Sorry, sir, lost the signal for a moment. Could you repeat that?" Phil said.

Fury's voice went up another notch, audible through the Starkphone's impeccable sound system as he made more demands.

Phil glanced at his "kids" again. All of them but Steve were getting edgy; they didn't like it when people got angry and yelled. Bruce ducked under the coffee table, followed immediately by Natka, though Phil hoped she did so more for Bruce's comfort. Steve just crossed his arms and _glowered_. Phil made an effort to rein in his own temper.

"I'm not going to shortchange my people just for the sake of hand-patting a bunch of antsy Army staff," Phil said. "If the meeting is that important, tell them to reschedule during normal business hours on a non-invasion, non-supervillain day. I promise you that what we're doing here is more useful than their meeting."

Tony and Clint snickered at that. Bruce and Natka came out from under the coffee table to watch. Even Steve was smirking. 

Fury started making threats. This was not a prudent move.

"For the last time, _I'm_ their liaison, _I'm_ their handler, _I'm_ the one in charge of making sure the Avengers do their job," Phil said. He was not about to let Fury give them another case of burnout when they were just getting into something approaching a healthy work and home life. "You need them to keep the world safe, and I need to make sure they're properly prepared to do that. What you're asking is NOT their job and they are NOT coming in to do it. I'm shutting down communications now--"

_"I will personally come over there and drag their lazy asses to this meeting!"_ the phone squawked.

Phil's temper finally snapped the leash. He activated the "intruder watch" portion of tower defenses. Fury would _never_ get through that, and if JARVIS didn't just tase him into a stupor, he'd find himself explaining his attempt at breaking-and-entering to the NYPD. 

"If you don't like our terms, Nick Fury, then you can accept our resignations right now and _fuck the hell off!"_ Phil snarled. He closed the call, and was both surprised and gratified when JARVIS attached an emphatic slamdown sound effect to the disconnection.

"See, we're not going anywhere, just like I promised," Phil said. They had contingency plans in case SHIELD became untenable, but he doubted that would prove necessary. "Clint, lay out the board for Mouse Trap, please." Clint heaved a sigh of relief and obeyed. The others shook off their tension as well.

Bruce was staring at Phil, his eyes gone huge and round. "You said bad words."

"Yes, I did," Phil agreed. "That was very naughty of me, and I'll give up my last brownie for it." He pushed the plate over to Steve, who always had room to eat one more. "I hope you'll all learn from my bad example and not repeat any of that."

_"Fuckoff!"_ Tony chirped inevitably.

Phil sighed and covered his face with his hand.


	14. As Promised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The teambuilding exercise proves its worth in the field.

Fury was pushy and ruthless, but he wasn't completely stupid. He didn't challenge the security on Avengers tower. He didn't accept anyone's resignation. He didn't follow through and attempt reassignments either, so there was no need for them to disengage from SHIELD and go independent. Besides, he didn't have anyone else willing _or_ able to take on the Avengers. That had become spectacularly clear during the week Coulson was "dead." So the game nights continued undisturbed. Besides, Coulson was _right_.

The teambuilding exercise proved its worth in the field as promised. 

One day, they were fending off a Hydra attack when Captain America shouted an order to Iron Man ... and Tony just _followed it,_ without hesitating or arguing over the comm.

Then someone took aim at the Hulk with an anti-tank missile. Phil got the drop on the man and choked him unconscious. Oh yes, that felt _good_. He'd been yearning to do something like that for a very long time. Phil gave a happy sigh as he let the limp villain slump to the pavement. Then he tased the one trying to shoot at Iron Man.

Suddenly something hit the building next to him. Phil looked down and found another Hydra agent. From the trajectory and the bent gun, Hulk had caught the man aiming at Phil and thrown him against a wall. As Phil looked up, Hulk waved at him and bounded away to smash something else. Phil crouched down to fasten the three defeated enemies together with SHIELD-issue zip ties. That would hold them until junior agents could pick them up.

"Hawkeye, behind you!" Black Widow shouted. While Hawkeye whirled to shoot the enemies sneaking up on him, Black Widow took out the ones trying to lower themselves from above. They fell rather farther than they had intended, and landed on hard roof instead of soft Hawkeye. An arrow through the thigh dropped the one circling Black Widow.

She scrambled down from Hawkeye's building to the top of a bus, only to have several Hydra agents rush her. Black Widow kicked two of them in the throat simultaneously. The others knocked her off the bus.

Hulk caught Black Widow in midair, rolled to take the momentum, and set her gently back on her feet. A spray of bullets bounced off his green shoulders. With a roar, Hulk picked up the empty bus and smashed it into Hydra's formation of footsoldiers.

"Cap, assist!" called Iron Man, holding up his hands.

Captain America was almost a block away. He turned and _passed his shield_ to Iron Man, who was in a perfect position to hurl it into the vulnerable underside of the Hydra troop transport. The vehicle went down with a gratifying amount of black smoke pouring from its guts.

After that it was just a matter of mopping up the last few enemies. Phil supervised the junior agents who came to take the Hydra casualties into custody. He kept the other half of his attention on the comm chatter as his team members called in. Everyone reported safe, except --

"Has anybody got eyes on Hulk?" Hawkeye asked in a worried tone. "I lost him after those guys tried to jump me on the roof."

This was not good. Hulk out of contact tended to mean Hulk wreaking unnecessary havoc on defenseless infrastructure, or worse, fleeing into the countryside to get himself good and lost. It had taken most of a day to find him on the previous two occasions when that happened. He hadn't done it recently, but still --

"Last I saw, he was standing on top of a wrecked Beemer," Iron Man said.

Just then, Hulk landed beside Phil with a ground-jarring _THUD_. He didn't look angry, despite the burnt patch on his pants that made Phil want to check him for injuries, nevermind that Hulk was well-nigh indestructible. He didn't look scared, either. He looked _satisfied_.

Phil announced over his comm, "Hulk just found me," then asked, "What can I do for you, Hulk?" 

"Catch me, Uncle Phil," Hulk said quite clearly.

And just like that, Hulk was gone and Bruce was left in his place, knees already buckling. Phil hastened to grab him before he could fall. Phil hadn't been prepared for this; it was the fastest, easiest transformation he'd seen yet. Bruce proved surprisingly unwieldy in his arms. This was usually when ...

"Steve!" Phil yelled. "Come get --" _your baby cousin,_ he almost finished, but managed to head off that part just in time. He'd said it so often, it had become almost automatic. That could be awkward, if he or anyone else let slip exactly what kind of exercise they were doing. Then again, role-playing was all over Phil's teambuilding manuals, and if "Saturday Pajama Party" was out of an abuse recovery book ... oh well, Nick Fury could just put on his big-boy shorts and _deal with it_.

"I've got him," Steve said, scooping up Bruce. It was no hardship for Steve to carry the smaller man tucked against his chest. Bruce gave a contented murmur and snuggled into Steve's grasp. The charred portion of Bruce's pants flaked away to reveal undamaged skin beneath.

"You sure do," Phil said. 

"Good job, everyone. Let's go home," Steve said.

"Yes," Phil agreed.

_Home_. Steve had been right. Love could make _anything_ real.

 

~ MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are now sequels:  
> "[Eggshells](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9155908.html)"  
> "[Dolls and Guys](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9184702.html)"  
> "[Turnabout Is Fair Play](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9196780.html)"  
> "[Touching Moments](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9203348.html)"  
> "[Splash](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9209156.html)"  
> "[Coming Around](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9234967.html)"  
> "[Birthday Girl](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9247938.html)"  
> "[No Winter Lasts Forever](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/9287951.html)"
> 
> See the series page for more.

**Author's Note:**

> See the [two-person rope puzzle](http://www.curiouser.co.uk/puzzles/rope.htm).
> 
> Among Phil's books is [Everyone Wins! Cooperative Games and Activities](http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Wins-Cooperative-Games-Activities/dp/0865715874).

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